In this sample chapter from Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Office Access 2003 in 24 Hours, you'll learn the basics of adding fields and applying sorting and simple criteria. You'll find out why queries are important and gain prowess working in both the Datasheet view and the Design view.

This chapter is from the book

Hour 3: Queries Introduced

Queries are stored questions about data. They are an extremely powerful aspect
of Microsoft Access. By using queries, you can retrieve just the data you want,
how you want it, whenever you want it. In this hour you'll learn the following:

What a query is and when you should use one

How to open a query in Datasheet view

How to open a query in Design view

How to run a query

How to add fields to a query, change the sort order of a query, and modify
a query's criteria

How to save a query

How to print query results

How to close a query

What Is a Query and When Should You Use One?

A Select query is a stored question about the data stored in a
database's tables. Select queries are the foundation of much of what you do
in Access. They underlie most forms and reports, and they allow you to view the
data you want, when you want. You use a simple Select query to define the tables
and fields whose data you want to view and also to specify the criteria that
limits the data the query's output displays. A Select query is a query of a
table or tables that just displays data; the query doesn't modify data in
any way. An example is a query that allows you to view customers who have placed
orders in the past month. You can use more advanced Select queries to summarize
data, supply the results of calculations, or cross-tabulate data. You can use
Action queries to add, edit, or delete data from tables, based on
selected criteria, but this hour covers Select queries. Hour 15, "Power
Query Techniques," covers other types of queries, including Action
queries.